Guest Workers Are at Crux of Groups’ Deal on Immigration

WASHINGTON — The nation’s top business and labor groups were near agreement Friday on a guest worker program for low-skilled immigrants, closing in on a deal that would eliminate one of the last significant obstacles to a new proposal for a broad overhaul of immigration laws, officials involved in the talks said.

The progress in the talks, which stalled late last week, had members of a bipartisan group of eight senators that has been working on an immigration bill increasingly optimistic that they would be able to introduce comprehensive legislation in the Senate when Congress returns the second week of April.

“We are very close, closer than we’ve ever been,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York and a member of the Senate group. “We are very optimistic, but there are a few issues remaining.”

The intense talks, and the willingness of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the A.F.L.-C.I.O. — two groups that have often found themselves deeply divided over the immigration debate — to try to hammer out an agreement, was an indication of how much the climate has changed on overhauling the nation’s immigration laws.

When President George W. Bush pushed to revamp immigration laws in 2007, the inability of business and labor to agree on a plan for temporary guest workers was among the main reasons that effort failed. But now the two groups have weathered leaks to the news media and other setbacks in a sign of how serious both Democrats and Republicans are about getting a bill on President Obama’s desk by the end of the year.

Some involved in the negotiations remained hopeful that a deal would be reached by the weekend, but the Congressional recess, along with the Good Friday observance, made it difficult to lock all the moving pieces in place, those close to the talks said. And, while the members of the bipartisan group were optimistic, aides cautioned that no deal would be final until all the senators had signed off on every piece of the legislation.

The Chamber of Commerce and the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the nation’s main federation of labor unions, have been in discussions parallel to those of the Senate group, and have already reached a tentative agreement about the size and scope of a temporary guest worker program, which would grant up to 200,000 new visas annually for low-skilled workers. The labor-business talks came close to breaking down last Friday, on the eve of a two-week Congressional recess, over the issue of what the pay levels should be for low-skilled immigrants — often employed at restaurants and hotels or on construction projects — who could be brought in when employers said they faced labor shortages.

One of the last sticking points in the business-labor negotiations has been the specific type of jobs that would be excluded from the program. The nation’s construction unions, officials in the talks said, have persuaded the negotiators to exclude certain higher-skilled jobs, including crane operators and electricians, from the guest worker program.

Eliseo Medina, the secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union and one of labor’s most influential voices on immigration issues, said, “We may be very close to a point where the senators will have an announcement soon.”

The tentative agreement seems to satisfy both groups: The business community is likely to see a number of visas that it considers adequate, while the agreement on wages is likely to please labor because it is not expected to affect the labor market adversely.

“The labor movement has been united in making sure aspiring Americans get a road map to citizenship and that any future flow program doesn’t reduce wages for any local workers,” said Tom Snyder, manager of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s Citizenship Now campaign. “And we will succeed on both fronts because politicians have heard immigrant communities loud and clear: citizenship now.”

Still, Randy Johnson, the senior vice president for labor, immigration, and employee benefits at the Chamber of Commerce, cautioned that any official agreement would come from the bipartisan Senate group.

“We advise senators on the Hill how to write the bill, and they decide on what bill would make sound legislation,” he said.

According to participants in the conversations, after the business-labor talks came close to breaking down last week, some union officials pressed the labor negotiators to show more flexibility to avoid losing momentum over the guest worker issue. At the same time, some business leaders and Republican lawmakers pressed the Chamber to be more flexible on the guest worker issue so as not to derail the overall immigration overhaul.

Business and labor reached agreement in recent days on the contentious issue of how many guest workers would be admitted each year, several officials said. They said the number would start at 20,000 visas a year and could grow to a maximum of 200,000 annually.

“There is a formula that will allow it to grow and shrink according to economic needs,” said Tamar Jacoby, the president of ImmigrationWorks, a group that represents small businesses on immigration matters.

She said the formula agreed to was not flexible enough to meet the needs of specific industries in specific places.

The number of guest workers allowed in would increase as the nation’s unemployment rate fell and the number of job openings increased. A federal commission would also assess the need for guest workers, with an eye to shortages in specific industries and communities.

In the negotiations, business vigorously objected to labor’s push to have employers pay guest workers more than they pay local workers — an idea labor pushed to encourage employers to increase wages and to discourage them from bringing in guest workers.

To settle that dispute, officials said, the two sides agreed that guest workers would be paid the prevailing industry wage previously used in the guest worker program. These officials said that employers who faced a labor shortage even after the national guest worker quota was filled could request a “safety valve” exemption to bring in workers, but with additional administrative hurdles and at a higher wage rate than the prevailing wage.

“Business and labor leaders both agree that we need a system that responds to the needs of our economy, and we are now in a position where they’re both coming together around key reforms that will fix the broken immigration system and move our economy forward,” said John Feinblatt, the chief policy adviser to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York and the chairman of the Partnership for a New American Economy.

A version of this article appears in print on March 30, 2013, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Guest Workers at Crux of Deal on Immigration. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe